Chapter 4 Hades
Hades
How much time must pass? Before she is returned or before I snap?
“My Lord,” Minox says. His voice is dull. Distant. Barely louder than a whisper. It cannot be louder than the breeze in my mind. His voice is cloaked in darkness as he is.
I’m aware it’s not real, but the image before me is vivid.
Persephone, standing in the meadow. The sun shines down on her hair.
She bends to pick a flower and twirls it in her fingers, then brings it to her nose to inhale its scent.
Her beauty and grace are unmatched. The depths of my soul long to be beside her, but that reality will never be.
I can never leave the Underworld. She must return to me. She must.
In my vision, the breeze moves through the trees. There are footsteps nearby. Creatures of the forest, perhaps. Inhabitants of the Underworld. I do not know, and I do not care. I cannot take my eyes off her.
Persephone lifts her head from the flower, and her face brightens.
The fog rolls in between the rows and rows of florals.
The faint purple hues mixed with the fog only add to her ethereal beauty.
The smile across her face cannot be for me—for I’ve taken that life from her—but after a moment, she lifts her hand and waves to me.
Her delicate features are calling to me.
Her lips form my name, but no sound reaches me.
Perhaps I’m meant to build her the castle in the foreground, to ensure she has the florals she’s always wanted and needed.
For the death here will not do. Maybe in a liminal space.
Somewhere between the Underworld and Olympus.
Somewhere we can run away together for a moment.
Just to hold her. To have her warmth in my embrace.
Hecate…could she make such a reality possible?
“My Lord,” Minox says again, a touch louder this time. As if he believes I hadn’t heard him. I did. I do not care for company or requests at this time. The rage has left me hollow. There’s nothing left of me to offer.
“No,” I answer.
I cannot seem to get closer to Persephone, but it is all I can think of. I need to know if she’s safe. I need to touch her. The skirts of her gown blow gently in the breeze, the fabric ripping in the air. Is she happy? Does she find joy in these moments where I find pain?
She’s beautiful in the summer. Gorgeous. There is no comparison. It’s Persephone who gives the meadow its beauty. It’s Persephone who makes the sun shine.
I used to dream about the sun. I used to dream about the light.
In those centuries that I was trapped in that dark pit, I wished for the light.
Even a single beam would do. There is no doubt I could offer Hecate something she’s always wanted.
The power that exists here behind the walls of the Underworld…
If only she could offer a safe haven for the two of us. Is it possible?
“My Lord.” A hand squeezes my shoulder. It is a gentle touch, but it gets firmer. Minox. It must be him, because it is his voice in my ear, but I do not want to speak to him.
The vision of Persephone begins to fade. And in its place the anger returns. The meadow turns gray, then black. Persephone loses color last of all, and I stare at her for as long as I can.
Just one more moment, please.
She is gone.
“Leave me,” I seethe. My tone warning as the rage billows in my chest again. Without her presence, I’m only left with the desire to make everything around me feel the pain I feel. Is that not what Demeter did? And she got what she damn well wanted.
“I cannot, my Lord.” Minox states and there’s a hint of regret in his tone.
I lurch forward in my chair in the lonely bedchambers, my back protesting, and balance my elbows on my knees so I can scrub at my face. My eyes are gritty and my mouth is dry and it occurs to me at this moment that it is possible I have not slept.
How could I fall into a slumber not knowing how she rests.
Minox places a careful hand on my back. The touch hurts as if he has bruised me, but I breathe through the discomfort and do not throw him off. He is too gentle. Too soft with me.
I remind myself of all I know of Minox. I have to clear my throat several times, then swallow. The Fates and Hecate have promised me. I will not negotiate. I merely need patience. I pray I do not lose my sanity while I wait.
“What is it,” I rasp at him, rubbing at my face again. This is my kingdom, I must act as a king. For that is what my queen deserves when she returns.
“Zeus has requested a meeting.”
Every inch of my body turns to stone. I can barely breathe, and Zeus wants a meeting. My lungs freeze as hatred rips its way through my being.
“Has he?” I say, the question ending with a sound that is nothing like a laugh.
“Yes.” Minox answers. “He has offered to meet via scrying.”
“Convenient.” I lean back in my chair again, tip my head back, and close my eyes.
How long have I been sitting in this chair?
Hours, I think.
I cannot remember coming to my rooms. Last night, I gorged myself on violence and destruction. There will be a record, somewhere, of how many souls I destroyed, but I cannot guess the number. For all I saw was red and then darkness.
Opening my eyes, I glance down at my lap.
My clothes are covered in ash. That, I remember. I wreaked such havoc on the Underworld that it rained ash throughout the realm.
The anger flickers to life again like an ember in the grate.
It is smaller now, or I have depleted myself enough to find some semblance of calm. My arms ache. My hands are calloused and sore.
Minox stands silently at my side, waiting for me to gather myself, his robe is obscenely still as he stands. Not daring to give away that he may breathe. Cerberus sleeps at my feet, snoring. I reach down and pet each of his heads. He did not come after me last night, and I am grateful of that.
“When?” I ask finally. I know not what to say to Zeus given his power in this situation seems to be limited.
It is Demeter who wages war. Demeter who has won.
And Demeter who wishes for me to suffer still.
The little birds have said as much. Although their sightings of Persephone are limited, Demeter has made her wishes known.
Zeus has Persephone. She’s on Olympus. She is with him, so if he wants a meeting, I have no choice but to take it. I am too hungry for information. I am starved for it, and it has only been one night.
“At your convenience,” Minox answers smoothly.
I scoff and heave myself out of the chair. It’s not meant for sleeping or for having visions of my queen. My feet ache underneath me. My clothes fit strangely on my body, as if they suffered under my rage.
“That’s not what he means, and you know it,” I tell Minox. “He means to meet within the hour.”
Minox smirks. He looks drawn as well. I do not know how long he has stood guard in this room, waiting for me to wake up—or toss myself out of my vision. I cannot have slept. I do not feel restored.
I doubt I will feel restored until Persephone is back. How can I feel life within me when the very goddess of life has been ripped from me?
“Zeus is not a man known for his patience,” he says. “When should I communicate that you will be ready?”
Another flare of anger. I want to keep Zeus waiting.
I want to show him how very little I think of him.
I want to crush him under my foot. God of the gods.
It is what he is supposed to be and he made a promise.
I swallow thickly, knowing Demeter’s hold on Persephone.
Knowing the promise Zeus made and what it required of me.
The simmering anger dulls as guilt overwhelms me.
But Persephone is with him, and the longer I toy with him, the longer I feel self-pity…the longer it will be until I have news of her.
“An hour,” I say to Minox. “I will meet with him in an hour. We will scry.”
An hour is too short a time. Bathing and dressing are both slow and painful, but I push myself through it. The agony exists because I have no control over how she returns to me…or if she does at all.
How quickly I got used to her presence here. How quickly I came to love her.
I brace my hand against the wall and breathe through my clenched teeth for quite some time. My fear is that she will not come back to me. I remember the seeds.
Then I haul myself up again and leave for my andron.
Cerberus is awake. He stretches and pads after me, keeping me company as I walk along the garden path. Crushed obsidian crunches under my boots, just as it has every other time I have made this journey.
It is impossible to make it now without thinking of another conversation I had with Zeus.
That was the day I ordered Minox to bring Persephone to me.
That was the night everything began.
I knew some things would change when Persephone came to the Underworld. I did not know she would shift my being so entirely. That she would control this much of me. I knew not how devastating love was to have and then lose.
I didn’t know I would fall for her with such depth. I didn’t know I would come to need her more than I have ever needed anything.
When I was trapped in the dark, I didn’t need the light as much as I need Persephone now.
I thought I would possess her. I didn’t realize how much she would possess all of me in return.
It’s deathly quiet as I stalk toward the andron, as gleaming and black as ever, and it is as empty as it was during that meeting with Zeus. My boots click on the floor. The cold air draws close to me as I cross the opulent space, getting closer to the mirror with every step.
My dead heart ticks in my chest with a heaviness that seems to beat from the crown of my head to the bottom of my soles.
I’m torn between the need to hear about my queen and the need to spit in Zeus’s face. I would rather smash the mirror into a thousand pieces than speak to him. The war still wages and it is on him to end it.